The Operations Execution Gap: Marketing (Part 4 of 4)

By David Mostovoy

To drive excitement for their brand and keep foot traffic high, restaurant operators rely heavily on designing and successfully executing their marketing promotions and Limited Time Offers (LTOs). Without seasonal offerings, new deals, and exciting new products, they would struggle in the constant tug-of-war for consumers’ dollars.

But when it actually comes to the rollout of core procedures like basic marketing promotions and initiatives, Zenput’s new restaurant industry research survey found that less than 1 in 3 respondents described new product rollouts and LTOs as “very effective.” Restaurant operators at fast casual chains seem to struggle the most, with only one in ten rating compliance as “very effective,” while their counterparts at QSRs were more optimistic, with one in three boasting very effective rollouts at the store level.

So, what’s happening? Getting timing and execution right is harder than it looks — especially when you don’t have the proper tools for the job. Even with the right talent and training, restaurant operators find they’re not well equipped to quickly and effectively communicate the things that are most important to field and store employees. And, they fundamentally struggle to overcome the realities implied by distances between HQ and each store to ensure compliance remotely.

Moving Forward

But restaurant operators are taking notice and are actively doing something to improve execution. Driven by advancements in mobile technology, these are the top 6 areas where corporate brands and franchisees are planning to invest to improve their execution on operating procedures like marketing promotions and initiatives:

Corporate Brands:

Store tasks and audits

Inventory tracking

Temperature reads/monitoring

Franchisees:

Employee training

Audits

Inventory tracking

Interested to learn more about our findings? Check out this infographic.